pacheco

I have a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University in biology & chemistry. I have worked as a chemist and OSHA Industrial Compliance inspector and then managed to work for 20 years as either a corporate, Health and Safety Manager or Health Safety & Environmental Manager for several well known international companies.

I got laid off for the last time and will never get laid off again and my one wish is that I had known of HB 15-20 years ago.

Thanks Cody.

Just for the record, anyone dealing with human fecal matter better be very, very careful…hogs are a totally different matter. To date, one does not get immunity from HIV, hepatitis or any of a number of other communicable diseases through contact with human blood or feces.

Having my immune system bombarded from chemo for leukemia 11 years ago, I am knowledgeable and very serious. Even with the proper shots, contact with human bodily fluids is very serious and not a laughing matter.

My son and I will refer any such work to Bubba in town and let him have the risk…the rewards are not worth the risk if not trained, protected and insured…no matter who the client happens to be.

Ditto…we have a photo of my son and myself with our names underneath and almost always, upon coming to the door, the customer says, “You look just like your picture”…simple, but effective. Learned this from a state owner in the west..Thanks. It works Dave

The unit we cleaned was a rented townhouse. The renter hired me as he was moving out. We charge $45/average room or area and with 7 rooms an easy calculation. Light berber carpet and the owner and wife showed up unexpectedly to inspect. I had a pair of booties next to the door for them after we left, wife got another pair so they could inspect. We got them for customers in the future I believe…they were very impressed.

There are several booties on the maret. I tried several and disrecommend the hospital Tyvek type, since they allow liquid through and the lined ones are slippery inside the bootie. Also, I would NOT recommend the Enviroguard brand, they are very slippery inside the bootie as well. I use the Correct Touch type and they are not slippery at all inside the bootie and are snug around the metatarsal areaa dn lock in whatever is on your shoe and out whatever is outside.

I have yet figured out how to final rake or vacuum carpeting without stepping on it with my shoes.

When doing tile and grout cleaning, the booties are very helpful…no mud created and spread around at all. Anyone who has cleaned tile and grout knows what I am talking about.

I leave booties for real estate agents and for customers if they are not home, so when they arrive, they will not instantly resoil their carpeting if they must walk on it while still damp.

Must be getting punchy here…By the way, I also post-vacuum with a clean vac..not the same one I used to vacuum the original dirty carpeting with. And I guess we almost aslways kick up “stuff” to vacuum, so we always post-vacuum.

As far as cost of the booties is concerned..nominal when compared to the effect and comparison to other cleaners who are using them in the area.

In this market, almost all successful contractors working inside a home are using some type of bootie…

Dave

After being in business for only a couple of months, I came to the conclusion that we always wanted to be better than the other carpetcleaners around the county and even more important…give the impression or perception that we are better.

I cannot even begin to count the number of times that someone has commented on my/our wearing booties, when, no previous ccarpet cleaner they had used ever did. Well, we do not believe in walking on clean, lightly damp carpet with dirty shoes! It will clean the bottoms of the shoes very well.

We always wear booties and also leave a pair of more for the family use if they must walk on the carpeting before it is totally dry. It subliminally leaves a huge positive impression with the customer.

The question I would ask everyone is this…

Is anyone else in your area using booties? If they are, why aren’t you? And if they aren’t, wouldn’t it set you above and apart from them..the herd?

If anyone thinks this is anal retentive thinking…then you really don’t want to hear how we post-vacuum a carpet.

Thoughts?

Happy New Year!

Dave

I bought a couple a couple of years ago from a local supplier…they hold a lot of dirt, cannot get a clean look after being washed and are very, very expensive. I like the results though, I just could not justify buying a bunch of them at all and they did not last very long before deteriorating. Maybe I got the wrong type.

Not buying again…

Pray…it does work…always, just not in our timing though.

My Dad’s favorite animal was a turtle… He maintained that it taught each of us one of the most important lessons in any business, and life for that matter. It has to stick its neck out in order to go anyplace. If you notice, the further it sticks it out, the faster it usually goes. Dad was right.

I thought the above might be appropriate as my son will be going to Rexburg in February, get a van and be on his own after 7 months training and working with me. Will he make mistakes??? Yep. Did I? Yep. AND we all learn from them.

Like my grandfather, a high school chemistry teacher used to say “show me someone in a lab who never broke a test tube, and I will show you someone who never did much in a lab”.